“Agreed. I will be the only one from the Army besides your two liaison men. We have one more lead. They are calling themselves the Rebel Separatist Islamic Liberation Front, and they have been asking local villages to support them. We have heard about their calls. We have an area closer to us here where we think there may be one of the two GHQs of the rebels. How do you want to play it?”
Jaybird spoke up first. “My suggestion, Colonel, is that we do the chopper assault again, only do it in the daytime, and bring one chopper in from both directions along the river. They’ll think we’re attacking from both ends, only we’ll have all our firepower in one chopper and take them out.”
The colonel laughed and shook his head. “Good, yes, a good idea. I’m amazed that it comes from an enlisted man. If I suggested to my staff that we include corporals on our strategy planning sessions, they would hoot me out of the room.”
“Several of my men have had three years of combat and actions like this on a nearly monthly basis, Colonel. We learn from experience, and rank has nothing to do with intelligence. Some of my men have been on thirty bloody combat missions similar to this one. Experience pays off.”
Colonel Alvarez nodded. “I wholeheartedly agree. What about timing?”
“We can get in a good sleep period and be ready to go at noon tomorrow.”
Senior Chief Sadler frowned. “Skipper, what would you think about sending out a false signal. Say we were planning a night mission tomorrow at the first camp that was hit by the Lieutenant Ejercito and his group yesterday.”
“A little misinformation,” Murdock said. “Colonel?”
“Yes, good. I can have some memos written up and sent to you and to some other staffers, also one to Flight Ops and to Supply for a possible need for ammunition. It could help.”
“With the colonel’s permission, it’s almost lights out for my troops.”
“Yes. Dismissed. We’ll try to keep everything under wraps. I’ll send a messenger to alert the two chopper pilots and tell them not to tell anyone what they are doing or who they are flying or anything. If they get pinned down, they’ll say it’s a training flight.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
The SEALs and the two Filipino Army men left the room.
Murdock called to the two locals. “Gentlemen, not that I doubt your loyalty, but I want you both restricted to our SEAL quarters until we take off tomorrow noon.”
DeWitt agreed. The Filipinos said that would be no problem. DeWitt still frowned. “Chow,” he said. “If we get special chow before we go it could tip off somebody. Let’s eat normal chow for breakfast, then draw some MREs, if they have any, to eat on the chopper for lunch.”
“Done,” Sadler said. “I’ll do a walk-by at the mess tomorrow morning and bring back the goodies.” He turned to Lieutenant Ejercito. “You do have some kind of emergency field rations, don’t you.”
“We do. We buy MREs from the States.” They all laughed.
In the morning, mess call came at 0730 and all the SEALs made it. They heaped extra food on their trays and ate it all. One of the local Filipinos assigned to the SEALs walked in front and one behind them to smooth out any problems in the mess line. Murdock and DeWitt ate along with the rest of the men.
Back in their quarters, all of the SEALs gathered and went over what intel the colonel had given them. It was another small village on a different river. They guessed at about twenty reed houses and maybe a hundred people. If the rebels were there, there might be fifty men and some or all of the hostages. It was a big if, but it was all they had right then.
“We need to develop some information on these rebels on our own,” Murdock said. “But I don’t see how that’s possible.”
“What we need to do is to spot two men in the field, track the rebels, send out word where they are and what they’re doing,” DeWitt said.
“Highly dangerous,” Lieutenant Ejercito said. “You saw what they did with the two spies they caught.”
“Still, if we rely on the colonel’s intel, we might be here a year chasing our tails around in circles,” Murdock said.
“Sounds like my meat,” Lampedusa said. “Only how would I get the intel out?”
“SATCOM,” Bradford said. “You can use mine and we’ll get another one. Didn’t we bring a backup SATCOM?”
“That we did, oh, wise one,” Sadler said.
“Lam, you don’t know the turf,” Murdock said.
“So send along somebody who does.”
“I’ll go,” Ejercito said. “I’ve been going crazy sitting around here. I’m better in the field.”
Murdock scowled and stared at the two men. “Two problems. Would it work? Could you get close enough to them to do any good? Could you even find them? From what I hear they could be anywhere over there within a fifty-square-mile area.”
Ejercito nodded. “Yes, Commander. If they are at this village we’re going to tomorrow, Lam and I simply stay behind after we hit them. We track them and dig out intel, grab a prisoner and question him for more intel, get everything we can and zap it out to you every night on the SATCOM. I’ve seen them work. We have something similar on different frequencies.”
Murdock looked at Lam.
“Hell, yes, with a local native guide we should be able to ace them right up their assholes and they’ll never know we’re there,” Lam said. “Packing the damn SATCOM will be a pain, but no way we can keep within five miles of a chopper with a Motorola. Yeah, we can do it.”
Murdock put a big X on a sheet of paper. “Okay, let’s say it’s workable, you can do the job. The next big problem as I see it is can you stay alive and get back out without getting your heads turned into worm buckets and your hearts roasted over a campfire.”
The Filipino Army lieutenant smiled. “I don’t think it will come to that, Commander. I’ve seen Lam working. He slipped up on me once when I was watching for him and I never saw or heard him. With his guts and skills, and my understanding of the local jungle and the people, we should survive.”
Murdock looked at Lam. “This is above and beyond.”
“Oh, hell, yes, way up there above. I like it out there. I won’t have Senior Chief Sadler yelling at me all the time.” He grinned. “Just kidding, Senior Chief. Yeah, Skipper. I want to go. Without it we’re fucking ourselves in public.”
DeWitt walked across the room and came back. Everyone watched him, waiting. He was thinking. He’d done this many times before. “So, do we tell the colonel?” DeWitt asked. He answered himself. “Hell, no, not until he misses the lieutenant. I’m not overjoyed with the colonel and his security.”
They looked at Lieutenant Ejercito. “You’re probably right,” he said. “I have no responsibility to tell him. I don’t report to him. I’d say go on our own. He’ll miss me sooner or later. Then maybe you’ll have to tell him. He’s going to wonder where we get new intel if you make strikes we set up for you from the field.”
“We’ll tell him when we have to, probably before the first hit you zero us in on,” DeWitt said.
“Okay, let’s do it,” Murdock said. “You two will need extra ammo and a duffel filled with ammo and emergency rations and clothes. You’ll need a cache somewhere. Senior Chief, work it out. The rest of you get some rest. We have a liftoff tomorrow at 1200.”
The next morning, preparations for the hit on the village went on schedule. Senior Chief Sadler arranged for extra emergency food and uniforms to be supplied by the Filipinos to be in the duffel for the two recon men. The pair decided to take only the H & K MP-5’s for close-in work. They wouldn’t do any attacking, and would use the weapons for defense if they were seen or chased.